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I always read that a 400m jog is too much rest for this to work as a mile predictor, the "standard" for that is 1 minute rest I think. 400m jogs rest are great for regular workouts though (really anywhere from 200m to 400m depending on the athlete)

Except there are treaties and trade agreements that effectively prevent nations to decide on their own terms for these kind of things. Yes you could technically decide to not have patent law or shorter copyright terms, but then you wouldn't be able to enter any kind of commercial relationship with most countries of the world....

He means two miles at an easy pace and two strides: short fast relaxed runs of between 50m-100m with enough recovery. These are not sprints, more like mile pace short runs. It's all in the book, try to avoid skipping parts of it!

I ran with the 4:30/km pacer in my last HM (I was shooting for exactly that pace, ended up running slightly faster finishing in 1:34).

I was very grateful that I did. I didn't know there was going to be a pacer for that time so it was a pleasant surprise when I saw him in the start area. I decided on the spot to go with him. We were a group of around 15-20 people (in a race of about 3000).

I moved up and down on the group, sometimes being 5m from the pacer, sometimes 10m back, but never broke contact with the group.

He was great and ran perfectly even splits, all kms splits between 4:2x and 4:3x. He pushed a little on the uphills but it was mostly a flat course.

I left the pacer behind after the only significant hill (a highway overpass) with about 5km because I was feeling great and I went on to finish almost a minute ahead of him in the end, but it was great having him there to pace me for the first 16km.

This was my third HM in two years and the first one I did with a pacer. I would reccommend it. I also have an upcoming HM in a couple of months and I wish I could have a pacer for my target time but I don't think I'll be that lucky this time...

I'm sorry I can't help you much, but I wanted to offer a couple of comments:

I think it would be best if you dropped the "my dog/his dog" thing. Dogs belong to the household, and every family member should consider himself the owner. If you and your family can't agree in a training method (much like agreeing in feeding/grooming/exercise responsabilities), then I'm afraid to say you probably shouldn't bring a dog to that house. This seems especially true considering you are moving away!

I know many people don't agree with Cesar Millan's way of interacting with dogs, but let me assure you that he never recommended whipping dogs or putting them in their crates for punishment (In fact he actually is against that kind of thing). He also wouldn't pin a dog to the ground because it was playing (although he might redirect a dog if it was behaving overly dominant over another member of the pack)

I think it really depends on what intensity you had in your previous training, but the plan is probably not for you. I used it successfully last year to go from little running (about 20km/week) to a sub 1:45 first HM (and first race) in 16 weeks. During those 16 weeks I ran about 4-5 days and 35-40km a week. Previous to that my 5k & 10k times were around 26mins & 55mins or so (both training runs). One thing going on for me was that I lost a ton of weight in the process (about 20lbs) and I followed the plan religiously with only minimal adjustments.

The idea of the intermediate plan is to gradually take you from relatively low mileage (and no long run to speak of) to a 45km-50km week with a long run of about the HM distance. If you are already at that mileage and have a weekly long run of at least 10 miles (16km), then you are better off with another plan. The advanced plan seems like a good option if you like Hal Higdon's approach (which I now consider to have too many miles concentrated on the long run).

If you increased both your mileage and intensity at the same time it's normal for you to struggle (if not injure yourself). Are you asking because you are failing the workouts prescribed (either can't go the distance or fall behind on the pace)? Or because you find them too hard?

You could certainly do as you say and scale back the workouts, but I would recommend instead that you do a few weeks around 40km with less intensity: five days a week with one longish run of 10-12km and MAYBE one T workout after a couple of weeks. After one or two months of that you will certainly be better prepared to try the Red Plan again with better results.

2085 km or about 1295 miles, which averages to about 40 km (25 miles) a week. This year I am planning to average between 64 and 72 km (40 to 45 miles) a week for a total of between 3300 and 3700 km (between 2050 and 2300 miles).

I feel a lot freer with them, but it maybe partly a psychological thing, I dunno. As for the pocket, mine's is quite small, but I only carry two keys (building and appartment doors) so no problem there. I never carry gus or water during training or racing.

You should definitely do a time trial (preferably a race), in the 10k-HM range to get a usable VDOT value. VDOT should come for a recent race.

Now let's assume the VDOT you get is equivalent to your marathon performance (it could probably be higher, given shorter distances are easier to race for most people and you got aditional training under your belt).

Even then, your T pace would be around your goal marathon pace when you start training. So you would still get some miles at goal marathon pace. You can also update your VDOT and training paces every 3 or 4 weeks of training if you can show results in races.

I just started running in split shorts (couldn't find ones locally before). They feel awesome. 5 cm inseam (2 inches), one inside pocket (has a little fold, but no zipper), built in liner/underwear, dry-wicking. I just bought two pairs in a local race, locally sewn. Sadly the usual suspects (adidas, nike, etc) don't carry short shorts in my country :(

I don't know what kind of training plan you are following (if any), but I don't think a 24k long run on a 47k week is reasonable (over 50% of weekly mileage, whereas I think most would reccomend from 25% to 30%). I know I had some scares when training for my first HM (doing low mileage, maybe around 40k) when I got my long runs above 15k. Something to take into consideration in the future (either up your mileage or cut your long runs short).

At 2-4 runs a week and (I am assuming) 20-30km/week (12-20 mi/week) I would say you are not "ready" for a half marathon. But that doesn't mean you can't run it.

If you can do 10km in an hour (6:00/km) in a training session you can surely do 21km at about 6:25/km (around 2:15) in a HM race. What's more, I would say that depending on your running history you could probably shoot for a sub-2 hours (about 5:45/km pace). There's only one way to know!

How long have you been running consistently? Have you ever done a run above 10km? how long? at what pace?
If you haven't done anything longer than 10k and still want to do the HM, then it's probably wiser to stick to your plan of 2:15ish. If you have done some longer runs in the past or have been running consistently for more than say, six months, maybe try and hold a 6:00/km or 5:45/km pace and see what happens.

I would probably help to do a couple of runs the week of the race, but leave a couple of days of rest before sunday.

I didn't participate in the original thread but I want to both congratulate you for your success and thank you for the update. There's way too many people asking for advice around here and not that many coming back to tell us how it went.

Can you tell us what training did you finally do in order to achieve this? Did you do longer intervals (like 800s) or more long distance slower running? (or both?) Also, what was your mile time before training for this? Thanks

I guess that just means you're not yet strong (or flexible) enough to do them with your arms overhead. You have to do whatever is neccesary (arms by your sides, flexed knees) in order to have your lower back pressed against the floor. Once you progress enough, you can try again a harder variation and see if you can do it for enough time with correct form.

I've run many times in my adidas indor soccer shoes, from 5 to 16kms at a time with no noticeable problems. I use minimalist shoes most of the time (running around 64 kms a week) but some days I'm at my parent's and the only thing similar to a running shoe I keep over there are my soccer shoes.

They offer a lot less support than a traditional running shoe, but I find that's not a problem for me. I say try it and see for yourself, but please stop at the first sign of pain!

There's a series of races around here (in Buenos Aires, Argentina) that are run once per season and each one has a quarter medal with a seasonal motive, if you run all four seasons you can combine them in a whole medal. I found it quite amusing: whole medal.

I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I'm sorry to say that what you wrote would match the description of the city by many people. That however doesn't prevent me from running everyday and enjoying it. I run in a local park that has a 1200m loop (marked every 100m too!) and every day I see lots of people running, or walking their dogs or whatever.

It really depends on where you live and what your schedule looks like, but I feel almost everywhere you can find an apropriate place to run in. In the worst case you can always find a gym or track somewhere I guess...

A 5k is a race, you are suposed to run fast! (unless you mean you ran 5km while training). If I remember correctly, Jack Daniels says that a 5k is run at around 85% or 90% or max HR. For me that would be around 180bpm btw.

This is great! I added a race in Argentina I've run this year. It's done twice a year (in two different cities) and has a competitive 5k as well as participative 3k (and 1k for kids if I remember correctly).

It really depends on how you trained. From what you said I gather you did all your runs at about the same pace (So i gather it was a combination of easy runs and probably a long run a week). In that case I would say you run at about that pace. If halfway/two-thirds through you are feeling good you can pick it up a little. If you had already run 13 miles training, I think you will probably run faster on race day, because of the adrenaline and the confidence of knowing you can do it, but better be safe than sorry.

On the other hand if you had some faster workouts, like intervals or tempo runs you can run faster than your easy pace (maybe 30 to 90 seconds faster per mile). That is what I did for my first half a couple of weeks ago. My easy pace was about 9, 9 and a half minutes a mile, but I was able to complete my half running consistently just below 8 per mile. This after doing Hal Higdon intermediate program which included some interval sessions, tempo runs and pace runs every week.